Elmwood Park-based Bio-Reference Laboratories Inc. said Tuesday that adverse weather contributed to lower net income in the fiscal first quarter this year. The company said revenue rose 12 percent compared with the same quarter of a year ago.

Elmwood Park-based Bio-Reference Laboratories said today that adverse weather contributed to lower net income in the fiscal first quarter this year. The company said revenue rose 12 percent compared with the same quarter last year.

The clinical testing laboratory said net income declined 66 percent to $3 million, or 11 cents a share, from $8.7 million, or 31 cents, for the period ended Jan. 31.

Bio-Reference said it expected net income for the first quarter would "be about half" of that earned in the first quarter of fiscal year 2013, but did not take into account additional effects of difficult weather conditions, according to a news release.

This quarter's revenue totaled $181.2 million, an increase of 12 percent from last year's first-quarter total of $161.3 million. Revenue per patient for the first period remained virtually flat compared with the year prior at $81.17.

Grodman said the weather this year would continue to affect Bio-Reference in the second quarter.

"Based on the weather in February alone as well as the predictions for March, we believe that adverse weather will have an estimated 5 cent to 7 cent impact on second-quarter earnings this year," he said. "This additional guidance does not result from a concern about our ability to grow the business; it is simply because the weather is something that can have a substantial effect on our business and we simply cannot control that factor."

In addition to the harsh weather, Grodman said continued effects from the reduction in reimbursement from payers impacted Bio-Reference's lower reported net income.

"This has been a tumultuous time in the clinical laboratory industry with a changing reimbursement landscape," Grodman said. "This kind of baseline change affects all parts of our business and all of the financial metrics of our operating performance. We believed that this first quarter would be about half that of the 31 cents we reported last year, and if not for the 5 cents per share we lost due to the weather, that is where we would have been."

The number of patients Bio-Reference served rose 12 percent to 2,206 in the first quarter this year from 1,973 in the first quarter of 2013.